AN; this will contain quiet a lot of parts from the sixth book, as I have decided that Harry will visit the pensive memories now, and I want the memories to be the ones from cannon. I have of course put in my own content and twist to it but ultimately the memories will be the same.

You have been warned.

The History of Lord Voldemort Part I

As he reached the top of the stone, circular staircase, he was confronted by a huge solid oak door, stepping off the staircase Harry approached the door and knocked.

"Come in Harry." Came the Headmasters voice from inside the office, surprising Harry.

Opening the door Harry was greeted with a large and beautiful circular room, full of funny little noises. As he walked further into the office he noticed a number of curious silver instruments stood on spindle-legged tables, whirring and emitting little puffs of smoke. The walls were covered with portraits of old headmasters and headmistresses, all of whom were snoozing gently in their frames. There was also an enormous, claw-footed desk, and, sitting on a shelf behind it, a shabby, tainted wizard's hat - the Sorting Hat.

Sat behind the desk was the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore. He was tall and thin, with silver hair and beard (auburn in his youth) so long that they could be tucked into his belt. He had a very long and crooked nose that looked as if it had been broken at least twice. He looked to be a benign, bright-eyed old man but Harry knew that beneath that was a powerful wizard, who when angered was said to be more terrifying than Lord Voldemort himself.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" Dumbledore asked Harry with a kind, gentle smile as he motioned for Harry to take a seat in front of his desk.

After he had taken a seat in front of the desk and gotten comfy, Harry looked the Headmaster in the eyes as he spoke just one word.

"Voldemort." Harry answered in a serious tone. As he spoke the name he noticed that Dumbledore nodded his head sagely, as though he had been expecting and waiting for Harry to come to him about the Dark Lord Voldemort.

"I have been expecting you to come and ask me about Lord Voldemort." Dumbledore stated as he picked up his wand, as he did so he noticed that Harry tensed ever so slightly and his hand twitched as though he wanted to go for his wand. "Cup of tea?" he asked with a kind smile.

"Yes please." Harry replied with a nod. He felt a little stupid, of course Dumbledore wasn't going to curse him, why would he? He watched as the aged Headmaster waived his wand and silently conjured a tea set and went about pouring them both a drink.

"Anyway as I said, I had been expecting you too come and ask me about Lord Voldemort, though if I am honest, I didn't expect you to ask until at least next year." Dumbledore explained as he passed Harry his cup of tea along with the sugar and milk.

"Why did you expect me to come to you next year?" Harry asked as he put half a teaspoon of sugar and drop of milk in his tea.

"Madam Pince told me of your obsession with You-Know-Who and the war against him, her words not mine." Dumbledore explained as he stirred his drink.

"To be honest, I am obsessed with him, the bastard killed my parents and tried to kill me." Harry replied as he took a swig of his tea, the hot liquid was soothing and helped to relax him somewhat.

"When I read that you lead the fight against him, I knew that I would have to come to you at some point, the paper said that you are the only one he ever feared and the only wizard in the world to duel him seven times and live to tell the tale." Dumbledore stayed silent sensing that Harry was not yet finished speaking.

"I know that Voldemort is still alive and that he is trying to come back to power." Harry stated quietly as he stared at his cup completely missing Dumbledore's jaw dropping in shock.

"How do you know that Voldemort is still alive?" Dumbledore asked after he got his wits about him.

"Ever since I returned to the Wizarding world, my scar twinges every so often, the same scar he left when he tried to kill me." Harry looked up to find Dumbledore looking back at him with a sad look on his face.

"The break-in at Gringotts and Quirrell trying to kill me in that match all point to one thing, Voldemort." Harry said as he downed half of his drink.

"You are of course correct, Lord Voldemort is alive and trying to come back to full power." Dumbledore replied with a grim tone as he looked at Harry.

"Should I tell him of the Prophecy?" He asked himself. He was in two minds with that, on the one hand telling him could help him to prepare for the final fight with Tom, and on the other hand Harry might just leave, plain and simply leave. He might not be ready to learn that he is to battle the Darkest of the Dark Lord's.

"I thought so." Harry nodded his head with a sigh, a part of him had hoped that he was just been paranoid and Voldemort was well and truly dead.

"I need you to prepare me for the final fight against Voldemort." Harry said pulling the Headmaster from his thoughts.

"What did you say?" Dumbledore asked in shock, surely Harry didn't already know the prophecy, did he?

"I think you heard me sir, I need training to be able to fight and defeat Voldemort once and for all." Harry said calmly as he stared Dumbledore straight in the eyes.

"But…."

I know the Prophecy sir." Harry interrupted Dumbledore before he could protest.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…"

"How." Dumbledore breathed in shock, not quite able to believe that Harry knew the prophecy word-by-word.

For an answer Harry pulled out a worn piece of folded parchment and handed it to Dumbledore.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies ..."

"Hi Harry, it your mum here. I'm sorry to have to inform you, but you are destined to kill or be killed by the Dark Lord Voldemort. But don't let this Prophecy rule your life, Harry. You must enjoy your life, make friends, date girls and most importantly, have fun."

Harry, it's your father; my piece of advice is different from your mothers, while I want you to have fun, prank people and woo the girls, I also want you to take care and train for your eventual battle with Voldemort.

Remember Voldemort is the most powerful dark wizard of the modern age, not even Dumbledore can match him in power and skill so unless you can beat Dumbledore in a duel then you are NOT ready to try and beat Voldemort. I am however, confident that you CAN and WILL one day beat the bastard. But until then train as hard as you can but remember to LIVE your life but NEVER trust anyone completely as even the last person you would ever expect to, CAN betray you, trust me on this. "Constant vigilance!" as my Auror trainer Moody would roar after firing a spell at me.

Live your life but NEVER let your guard down for even a second.

Love always,

James and Lily Potter (Mum and Dad)

"They wanted you to have a much time as possible to prepare for Voldemort." Dumbledore smiled a small sad smile as he handed Harry the precious letter back.

"My thoughts exactly." Harry nodded as he carefully folded the letter and put it back in his pocket. He carried the letter with him everywhere he went, ever since he got it all those weeks ago and he would continue to carry it with him until Voldemort was well and truly dead.

"Very well, I will help you in your quest to defeat Voldemort." Dumbledore said after a moment, his mind made up. If Harry's own parents had decided that he needed to know the prophecy as soon as possible, then who was he to complain? He would take this opportunity with both hands and he would make sure Harry both beat Voldemort and lived to tell the tale.

"Thank you sir." Harry replied gratefully, knowing that he now had a much better chance of defeating Voldemort, than he did with just duelling lessons from older students, the Headmaster would be able to teach him things that the other students couldn't even dream off.

"But there is a condition: You must obey any command I give you — without question." Dumbledore said seriously as he stood from his desk.

"Sir?" Harry asked with slight confusion.

"I will very rarely, if ever command you to do anything, but should it ever come up where I command you to abandon me and save your own life, then you must do so without question." Dumbledore explained as he walked over to a cabinet and opened the door before reaching inside.

"Yes sir, you have my word." Harry replied now fully understanding what the Headmaster had meant when he said `obey any command.

As Dumbledore straightened up Harry saw that he was holding a shallow stone basin etched with odd markings around its rim. He placed the basin on the desk in front of Harry.

"What is that sir?" Harry asked as he eyed the basin, wondering just what the aged wizard had in mind.

"This Harry, is a Pensive, it allows one to store memories inside and also allows one to revisit said memories." Dumbledore explained as he went over to another cabinet and waiving his wand, unlocked said cabinet and reaching inside pulled out a box full of tall, clear veils with swirling slivery-white mist inside.

"Sounds useful, are those your memories then?" Harry asked as he watched Dumbledore place the box on the table.

"Some are mine and the rest are what I acquired from others willing to share their knowledge of Voldemort, or as he was once known, Tom Marvolo Riddle." Dumbledore explained as he motioned for Harry to stand.

"Where are we going, sir?"

"For a trip down Bob Ogden's memory lane," said Dumbledore as he removed one of the bottles from the box. "I had planned to show these to you when you were older and knew of the prophecy, but since you know it, no time like the present.

"Yes sir." Harry nodded his agreement. ""Who was Bob Ogden?"

""He was employed by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," said Dumbledore. "He died some time ago, but not before I had tracked him down and persuaded him to confide these recollections to me. We are about to accompany him on a visit he made in the course of his duties."

Dumbledore tipped the silvery contents of the bottle into the Pensive, where they swirled and shimmered, neither liquid nor gas.

"Shall we go and visit Tom's Mother, Uncle and Grandfather?" Dumbledore asked with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes at Harry's surprised expression.

"To be able to defeat Voldemort, you must first understand the man and what made him become what he did." Dumbledore explained getting a nod of agreement from Harry.

"Makes sense."

"After you," said Dumbledore, gesturing toward the bowl. Harry bent forward, took a deep breath, and plunged his face into the silvery substance. He felt his feet leave the office floor; he was falling, falling through whirling darkness and then, quite suddenly, he was blinking in dazzling sunlight. Before his eyes had adjusted, Dumbledore landed beside him.

They were standing in a country lane bordered by high, tangled hedgerows, beneath a summer sky as bright and blue as a forget-me-not. Some ten feet in front of them stood a short, plump man wearing enormously thick glasses that reduced his eyes to mole like specks. He was reading a wooden signpost that was sticking out of the brambles on the left-hand side of the road. Harry knew this must be Ogden; he was the only person in sight, and he was also wearing a strange assortment of clothes so often chosen by in-experienced wizards trying to look like Muggles: in this case, a frock coat and spats over a striped one-piece bathing costume. Before Harry had time to do more than register his bizarre appearance, however, Ogden had set off at a brisk walk down the lane.

Dumbledore and Harry followed. As they passed the wooden sign, Harry looked up at its two arms. The one pointing back the way they had come read: Great Hangleton, 5 miles. The arm pointing after Ogden said Little Hangleton, 1 mile.

They walked a short way with nothing to see but the hedgerows, the wide blue sky overhead and the swishing, frock-coated figure ahead. Then the lane curved to the left and fell away, sloping steeply down a hillside, so that they had a sudden, unexpected view of a whole valley laid out in front of them. Harry could see a village, undoubtedly Little Hangleton, nestled between two steep hills, its church and graveyard clearly visible. Across the valley, set on the opposite hillside, was a handsome manor house surrounded by a wide expanse of velvety green lawn.

Ogden had broken into a reluctant trot due to the steep down-ward slope. Dumbledore lengthened his stride, and Harry hurried to keep up.

He thought Little Hangleton must be their final destination and wondered why they had to approach it from such a distance. He soon discovered that he was mistaken in thinking that they were going to the village, however. The lane curved to the right and when they rounded the corner, it was to see the very edge of Ogden's frock coat vanishing through a gap in the hedge.

Dumbledore and Harry followed him onto a narrow dirt track bordered by higher and wilder hedgerows than those they had left behind. The path was crooked, rocky, and potholed, sloping down-hill like the last one, and it seemed to be heading for a patch of dark trees a little below them. Sure enough, the track soon opened up

At the copse, and Dumbledore and Harry came to a halt behind Ogden, who had stopped and drawn his wand.

Despite the cloudless sky, the old trees ahead cast deep, dark, cool shadows, and it was a few seconds before Harry's eyes discerned the building half-hidden amongst the tangle of trunks. It seemed to him a very strange location to choose for a house, or else an odd decision to leave the trees growing nearby, blocking all light and the view of the valley below. He wondered whether it was inhabited; its walls were mossy and so many tiles had fallen off the roof that the rafters were visible in places. Nettles grew all around it, their tips reaching the windows, which were tiny and thick with grime. Just as he had concluded that nobody could possibly live there, however, one of the windows was thrown open with a clatter, and a thin trickle of steam or smoke issued from it, as though somebody was cooking.

Ogden moved forward quietly and, it seemed to Harry, rather cautiously. As the dark shadows of the trees slid over him, he stopped again, staring at the front door, to which somebody had nailed a dead snake.

Then there was a rustle and a crack, and a man in rags dropped from the nearest tree, landing on his feet right in front of Ogden, who leapt backward so fast he stood on the tails of his frock coat and stumbled.

"You're not welcome."

The man standing before them had thick hair so matted with dirt it could have been any colour. Several of his teeth were missing. His eyes were small and dark and stared in opposite directions. He might have looked comical, but he did not; the effect was frightening, and Harry could not blame Ogden for backing away several more paces before he spoke.

"Er — good morning. I'm from the Ministry of Magic —"

"Er — I'm sorry — I don't understand you," said Ogden nervously.

Harry thought Ogden was being extremely dim; the stranger was making himself very clear in Harry's opinion, particularly as he was brandishing a wand in one hand and a short and rather bloody knife in the other.

"Can you understand him Harry?" Dumbledore questioned him with a small frown.

"Yes of course, can't you." Harry replied as he turned to look at the headmaster.

"No, he is speaking Parseltongue and for all the other languages I can speak, the tongue of serpents is one that has always eluded me." Dumbledore explained with a small smile, the memory seemed to have paused as Harry and Dumbledore spoke.

"Tongue of serpents?"

"It means you can speak to snakes." Replied Dumbledore.

"But how can I speak another language without knowing I can speak it?" asked a very confused Harry.

"You can speak Parseltongue, Harry," said Dumbledore calmly, "because Lord Voldemort - who is the last remaining descendant of Salazar Slytherin - can speak Parseltongue. Unless I'm much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar. Not something he intended to do, I'm sure"

"Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?" Harry said, thunderstruck.

"It certainly seems so."

"Our lives and destinies are more entwined than I ever thought." Harry whispered as he swallowed his shock, get over it and move on was a favourite saying of his and now was no different.

"Shall we continue?" Dumbledore asked gesturing the memory waiting for them.

"Yes." Said Harry as he turned back to Bob and the strange man, who were frozen in place for a split second before Harry blinked and the memory continued as though there was no pause or conversation between Harry and Dumbledore.

The man in rags was now advancing on Ogden, knife in one hand, wand in the other.

"Now, look —" Ogden began, but too late: There was a bang, and Ogden was on the ground, clutching his nose, while a nasty yellowish goo squirted from between his fingers.

"Morfin!" said a loud voice.

An elderly man had come hurrying out of the cottage, banging the door behind him so that the dead snake swung pathetically. This man was shorter than the first, and oddly proportioned; his shoulders were very broad and his arms overlong, which, with his bright brown eyes, short scrubby hair, and wrinkled face, gave him the look of a powerful, aged monkey. He came to a halt beside the man with the knife, who was now cackling with laughter at the sight of Ogden on the ground.

"Ministry, is it?" said the older man, looking down at Ogden.

"Correct!" said Ogden angrily, dabbing his face. "And you, I take it, are Mr. Gaunt?"

"S'right," said Gaunt. "Got you in the face, did he?"

"Yes, he did!" snapped Ogden.

"Should've made your presence known, shouldn't you?" said Gaunt aggressively. "This is private property. Can't just walk in here and not expect my son to defend himself."

"Defend himself against what, man?" said Ogden, clambering back to his feet.

"Busybodies. Intruders. Muggles and filth." Ogden pointed his wand at his own nose, which was still issuing large amounts of what looked like yellow pus, and the flow stopped at once.

Mr. Gaunt spoke out of the corner of his mouth to Morfin. "Get in the house. Don't argue."

This time, ready for it, Harry recognized Parseltongue; even while he could understand what was being said, he distinguished the weird hissing noise that was all Ogden could hear. Morfin seemed to be on the point of disagreeing, but when his father cast him a threatening look he changed his mind, lumbering away to the cottage with an odd rolling gait and slamming the front door behind him, so that the snake swung sadly again.

"It's your son I'm here to see, Mr. Gaunt," said Ogden, as he mopped the last of the pus from the front of his coat. "That was Morfin, wasn't it?"

"Aye, that was Morfin," said the old man indifferently. "Are you pure-blood?" he asked, suddenly aggressive.

"That's neither here nor there," said Ogden coldly, and Harry felt his respect for Ogden rise. Apparently Gaunt felt rather differently.

He squinted into Ogden's lace and muttered, in what was clearly supposed to be an offensive tone, "Now I come to think about it, I've seen noses like yours down in the village."

"I don't doubt it, if your sons been let loose on them," said Ogden. "Perhaps we could continue this discussion inside?"

"Inside?"

"Yes, Mr. Gaunt. I've already told you. I'm here about Morfin. We sent an owl —"

"I've no use for owls," said Gaunt. "I don't open letters."

"Then you can hardly complain that you get no warning of visitors," said Ogden tartly. "I am here following a serious breach of Wizarding law, which occurred here in the early hours of this morning —"

"All right, all right, all right!" bellowed Gaunt. "Come in the bleeding house, then, and much good it'll do you!"

The house seemed to contain three tiny rooms. Two doors led off the main room, which served as kitchen and living room combined. Morfin was sitting in a filthy armchair beside the smoking fire, twisting a live adder between his thick fingers and crooning softly at it in Parseltongue:

Hissy, hissy, little snakey, Slither on the floor, you be good to Morfin or he'll nail you to the door."

"No wonder Voldemort is so messed up coming nutters like him." Harry thought as he watched Morfin and the adder.

There was a scuffling noise in the corner beside the open window, and Harry realized that there was somebody else in the room, a girl whose ragged grey dress was the exact colour of the dirty stone wall behind her. She was standing beside a steaming pot on a grimy black stove, and was fiddling around with the shelf of squalid-looking pots and pans above it. Her hair was lank and dull and she had a plain, pale, rather heavy face. Her eyes, like her brother's, stared in opposite directions. She looked a little cleaner than the two men, but Harry thought he had never seen a more defeated-looking person.

"M'daughter, Merope," said Gaunt grudgingly, as Ogden looked inquiringly toward her.

"Good morning," said Ogden.

She did not answer, but with a frightened glance at her father turned her back on the room and continued shifting the pots on the shelf behind her.

"Is she? Harry asked as he looked at the Headmaster.

"Yes Harry, she is Voldemort's mother." Dumbledore answered sadly wondering just how different Tom would have turned out had he grown up with a mother's love to guide him.

"Well, Mr. Gaunt," said Ogden, "to get straight to the point, we have reason to believe that your son, Morfin, performed magic in front of a Muggle late last night."

There was a deafening clang. Merope had dropped one of the pots.

"Pick it up!" Gaunt bellowed at her. "That's it, grub on the floor like some filthy Muggle, what's your wand for, you useless sack of muck?"

"Mr. Gaunt, please!" said Ogden in a shocked voice, as Merope, who had already picked up the pot, flushed blotchily scarlet, lost her grip on the pot again, drew her wand shakily from her pocket, pointed it at the pot, and muttered a hasty, inaudible spell that caused the pot to shoot across the floor away from her, hit the opposite wall, and crack in two.

Morfin let out a mad cackle of laughter. Gaunt screamed, "Mend it, you pointless lump, mend it!"

Merope stumbled across the room, but before she had time to raise her wand, Ogden had lifted his own and said firmly, "Reparo." The pot mended itself instantly.

Gaunt looked for a moment as though he was going to shout at Ogden, but seemed to think better of it: Instead, he jeered at his daughter, "Lucky the nice man from the Ministry's here, isn't it? Perhaps he'll take you off my hands, perhaps he doesn't mind dirty Squibs. . . ."

Without looking at anybody or thanking Ogden, Merope picked up the pot and returned it, hands trembling, to its shelf. She then stood quite still, her back against the wall between the filthy window and the stove, as though she wished for nothing more than to sink into the stone and vanish.

"Mr. Gaunt," Ogden began again, "as I've said: the reason for my visit —"

"I heard you the first time!" snapped Gaunt. "And so what? Morfin gave a Muggle a bit of what was coming to him — what about it, then?"

"Morfin has broken Wizarding law," said Ogden sternly.

"'Morfin has broken Wizarding law.'" Gaunt imitated Ogden's voice, making it pompous and singsong. Morfin cackled again. "He taught a filthy Muggle a lesson, that's illegal now, is it?"

"Yes," said Ogden. "I'm afraid it is."

He pulled from an inside pocket a small scroll of parchment and unrolled it.

"What's that, then, his sentence?" said Gaunt, his voice rising angrily.

"It is a summons to the Ministry for a hearing —"

"Summons! Summons? Who do you think you are, summoning my son anywhere?"

"I'm Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad," said Ogden.

"And you think we're scum, do you?" screamed Gaunt, advancing on Ogden now, with a dirty yellow-nailed finger pointing at his chest. "Scum who'll come running when the Ministry tells 'em to? Do you know who you're talking to, you filthy little Mudblood, do you?"

"I was under the impression that I was speaking to Mr. Gaunt," said Ogden, looking wary, but standing his ground.

Harry cracked a grin, even though the man was outnumbered by two clearly deranged and dangerous men, Ogden was brave enough to show he had a set of stones between his legs and Harry's respect for the man grew that much more.

"That's right!" roared Gaunt. For a moment, Harry thought Gaunt was making an obscene hand gesture, but then realized that he was showing Ogden the ugly, black-stoned ring he was wearing on his middle finger, waving it before Ogden's eyes. "See this? See this? Know what it is? Know where it came from? Centuries it's been in our family, that's how far back we go, and pure-blood all the way! Know how much I've been offered for this, with the Peverell coat of arms engraved on the stone?"

"I've really no idea," said Ogden, blinking as the ring sailed within an inch of his nose, "and it's quite beside the point, Mr. Gaunt. Your son has committed —"

"Peverell?" Harry asked Dumbledore with a gasp as his head snapped to look at the Headmaster.

"Yes Harry, you and Lord Voldemort are third cousins." Dumbledore answered sorrowfully, here was another family member for Harry and they were mortal enemies, destined to fight to the death. Sometimes life really was a cruel mistress.

"Bloody hell." Harry shook his head in shame, another cousin who he hated, was he destined to hate all his cousins, and he smirked at the thought of what the Prophet would do with that information.

With a howl of rage, Gaunt ran toward his daughter. For a split second, Harry thought he was going to throttle her as his hand flew to her throat; next moment, he was dragging her toward Ogden by a gold chain around her neck.

"See this?" he bellowed at Ogden, shaking a heavy gold locket at him, while Merope spluttered and gasped for breath.

"I see it, I see it!" said Ogden hastily.

"Slytherin's!" yelled Gaunt. "Salazar Slytherin's! We're his last living descendants, what do you say to that, eh?"

"Mr. Gaunt, your daughter!" said Ogden in alarm, but Gaunt had already released Merope; she staggered away from him, back to her corner, massaging her neck and gulping for air.

"So!" said Gaunt triumphantly, as though he had just proved a complicated point beyond all possible dispute. "Don't you go talking to us as if we're dirt on your shoes! Generations of purebloods, wizards all — more than you can say, I don't doubt!"

And he spat on the floor at Ogden's feet. Morfin cackled again. Merope, huddled beside the window, her head bowed and her face hidden by her lank hair, said nothing.

"Mr. Gaunt," said Ogden doggedly, "I am afraid that neither your ancestors nor mine have anything to do with the matter at hand. I am here because of Morfin, Morfin and the Muggle he accosted late last night. Our information" — he glanced down at his scroll of parchment — "is that Morfin performed a jinx or hex on the said Muggle, causing him to erupt in highly painful hives."

Morfin giggled.

"Be quiet, boy," snarled Gaunt in Parseltongue, and Morfin fell silent again.

"And so what if he did, then?" Gaunt said defiantly to Ogden, "I expect you've wiped the Muggle's filthy face clean for him, and his memory to boot —"

"That's hardly the point, is it, Mr. Gaunt?" said Ogden. "This was an unprovoked attack on a defenceless —"

"Ar, I had you marked out as a Muggle-lover the moment I saw you," sneered Gaunt, and he spat on the floor again.

"This discussion is getting us nowhere," said Ogden firmly. "It is clear from your son's attitude that he feels no remorse for his actions." He glanced down at his scroll of parchment again. "Morfin will attend a hearing on the fourteenth of September to answer the charges of using magic in front of a Muggle and causing harm and distress to that same Mugg —"

Ogden broke off. The jingling, clopping sounds of horses and loud, laughing voices were drifting in through the open window. Apparently the winding lane to the village passed very close to the copse where the house stood. Gaunt froze, listening, his eyes wide. Morfin hissed and turned his face toward the sounds, his expression hungry. Merope raised her head. Her face, Harry saw, was starkly white.

"My God, what an eyesore!" rang out a girl's voice, as clearly audible through the open window as if she had stood in the room be-side them. "Couldn't your father have that hovel cleared away, Tom?"

"It's not ours," said a young man's voice. "Everything on the other side of the valley belongs to us, but that cottage belongs to an old tramp called Gaunt, and his children. The son's quite mad, you should hear some of the stories they tell in the village —"

The girl laughed. The jingling, clopping noises were growing louder and louder.

Morfin made to get out of his armchair. , "Keep your seat," said his father warningly, in Parseltongue.

"Tom," said the girl's voice again, now so close they were clearly right beside the house, "I might be wrong — but has somebody nailed a snake to that door?"

"Good lord, you're right!" said the man's voice. "That'll be the son, I told you he's not right in the head. Don't look at it, Cecilia, darling.

The jingling and clopping sounds were now growing faint again.

"'Darling,'" whispered Morfin in Parseltongue, looking at his sister. "'Darling, he called her. So he wouldn't have you anyway."

Merope was so white Harry felt sure she was going to faint.

"What's that?" said Gaunt sharply, also in Parseltongue, looking from his son to his daughter. "What did you say, Morfin?"

"She likes looking at that Muggle, "said Morfin, a vicious expression on his face as he stared at his sister, who now looked terrified. Always in the garden when he passes, peering through the hedge at him, isn't she? And last night —"

Merope shook her head jerkily, imploringly, but Morfin went on ruthlessly, "Hanging out of the window waiting for him to ride home, wasn't she?"

"Hanging out of the window to look at a Muggle?" said Gaunt quietly.

All three of the Gaunt's seemed to have forgotten Ogden, who was looking both bewildered and irritated at this renewed outbreak of incomprehensible hissing and rasping.

"Is it true?" said Gaunt in a deadly voice, advancing a step or two toward the terrified girl. "My daughter—pure-blooded descendant of Salazar Slytherin — hankering after a filthy, dirt-veined Muggle?"

Merope shook her head frantically, pressing herself into the wall, apparently unable to speak.

"But I got him, Father!" cackled Morfin. "I got him as he went by and he didn't look so pretty with hives all over him, did he, Merope?"

"You disgusting little Squib, you filthy little blood traitor!" roared Gaunt, losing control, and his hands closed around his daughter's throat.

Ogden yelled "No!" raised his wand and cried,

"Relashio!"

Gaunt was thrown backward, away from his daughter; he tripped over a chair and fell flat on his back. With a roar of rage, Morfin leapt out of his chair and ran at Ogden, brandishing his bloody knife and firing hexes indiscriminately from his wand.

Ogden ran for his life. Dumbledore indicated that they ought to follow and Harry obeyed, Merope's screams echoing in his ears.

Ogden hurtled up the path and erupted onto the main lane, his arms over his head, where he collided with the glossy chestnut horse ridden by a very handsome, dark-haired young man. Both he and the pretty girl riding beside him on a grey horse roared with laughter at the sight of Ogden, who bounced off the horse's flank and set off again, his frock coat flying, covered from head to foot in dust, running pell-mell up the lane.

"I think that will do, Harry," said Dumbledore. He took Harry by the elbow and tugged. Next moment, they were both soaring weightlessly through darkness, until they landed squarely on their feet, back in Dumbledore's now twilit office.

"What happened to the girl in the cottage?" said Harry at once, as Dumbledore lit extra lamps with a flick of his wand. "Merope, or whatever her name was?"

"Oh, she survived," said Dumbledore, reseating himself behind his desk and indicating that Harry should sit down too. "Ogden Apparated back to the Ministry and returned with reinforcements within fifteen minutes. Morfin and his father attempted to fight, but both were overpowered, removed from the cottage, and subsequently convicted by the Wizengamot. Morfin, who already had a record of Muggle attacks, was sentenced to three years in Azkaban. Marvolo, who had injured several Ministry employees' in addition to Ogden, received six months."

"It so happens that we also had a glimpse of Voldemort's father. I wonder whether you noticed." Dumbledore asked as he summoned them both a bottle of butterbeer each.

"The Muggle Morfin attacked? The man on the horse?"

"Very good indeed," said Dumbledore, beaming. "Yes, that was Tom Riddle senior, the handsome Muggle who used to go riding past the Gaunt cottage and for whom Merope Gaunt cherished a secret, burning passion."

"And they ended up married?" Harry said in disbelief, unable to imagine two people less likely to fall in love.

"I think you are forgetting," said Dumbledore, "that Merope was a witch. I do not believe that her magical powers appeared to their best advantage when she was being terrorized by her father. Once Marvolo and Morfin were safely in Azkaban, once she was alone and free for the first time in her life, then, I am sure, she was able to give full rein to her abilities and to plot her escape from the desperate life she had led for eighteen years."

"Can you not think of any measure Merope could have taken to make Tom Riddle forget his Muggle companion, and fall in love with her instead?"

"The Imperius Curse?" Harry suggested. "Or a love potion?"

"Very good. Personally, I am inclined to think that she used a love potion. I am sure it would have seemed more romantic to her, and I do not think it would have been very difficult, some hot day, when Riddle was riding alone, to persuade him to take a drink of water. In any case, within a few months of the scene we have just witnessed, the village of Little Hangleton enjoyed a tremendous scandal. You can imagine the gossip it caused when the squire's son ran off with the tramp's daughter, Merope."

"But the villagers' shock was nothing to Marvolo's. He returned from Azkaban, expecting to find his daughter dutifully awaiting his return with a hot meal ready on his table. Instead, he found a clear inch of dust and her note of farewell, explaining what she had done."

Dumbledore decided not to question Harry's knowledge of the Imperius curse, from what Madam Pince had told him Harry had been in the library everyday researching and reading up all kinds of magic's. Now that he knew that Harry knew the Prophecy, he understood why.

"From all that I have been able to discover, he never mentioned her name or existence from that time forth. The shock of her desertion may have contributed to his early death — or perhaps he had simply never learned to feed himself. Azkaban had greatly weakened Marvolo, and he did not live to see Morfin return to the cottage."

"And Merope? She. ... She died, didn't she? Wasn't Voldemort brought up in an orphanage?" Dumbledore was surprised by Harry's knowledge about Voldemort, but then again if he was in the lad's shoes, he himself would want to know as much about his parent's killer as he could possibly find out.

"Yes, indeed," said Dumbledore. "We must do a certain amount of guessing here, although I do not think it is difficult to deduce what happened. You see, within a few months of their runaway marriage, Tom Riddle reappeared at the manor house in Little Hangleton without his wife. The rumour flew around the neighbourhood that he was talking of being 'hoodwinked' and 'taken in.' What he meant, I am sure, is that he had been under an enchantment that had now lifted, though I daresay he did not dare use those precise words for fear of being thought insane. When they heard what he was saying, however, the villagers guessed that Merope had lied to Tom Riddle, pretending that she was going to have his baby, and that he had married her for this reason."

"But she did have his baby."

"But not until a year after they were married. Tom Riddle left her while she was still pregnant."

"What went wrong?" asked Harry. "Why did the love potion stop working?"

"Again, this is guesswork," said Dumbledore, "but I believe that Merope, who was deeply in love with her husband, could not bear to continue enslaving him by magical means. I believe that she made the choice to stop giving him the potion. Perhaps, besotted as she was, she had convinced herself that he would by now have fallen in love with her in return. Perhaps she thought he would stay for the baby's sake. If so, she was wrong on both counts. He left her, never saw her again, and never troubled to discover what became of his son."

The sky outside was inky black and the lamps in Dumbledore's office seemed to glow more brightly than before.

"Now are you up to viewing more memories or would you rather continue this tomorrow?" Dumbledore asked, he was quite enjoying his time with Harry, the lad maybe cold but he was intelligent beyond his years.

"Let's carry on." Harry replied wanting to know more about the man he was destined to fight to the death, after all as the Headmaster said, understanding the enemy would go a long way in helping him in defeating his enemy.

"Very good." said Dumbledore, withdrawing a fresh bottle of silver memories from inside his robes and uncorking it with a wave of his wand.

"Merope was left alone in London, expecting the baby who would one day become Lord Voldemort." He said as he poured the memory into the stone basin.

"How do you know she was in London, sir?"

"Because of the evidence of one Caractacus Burke," said Dumbledore he swilled the contents of the Pensieve much as a gold prospector sifts for gold. Up out of the swirling, silvery mass rose a little old man revolving slowly in the Pensieve, silver as a ghost but much more solid, with a thatch of hair that completely covered his eyes.

"Yes, we acquired the necklace in curious circumstances. It was brought in by a young witch just before Christmas, oh, many years ago now. She said she needed the gold badly, well, that much was obvious. Covered in rags and pretty far along . . . Going to have a baby, see. She said the locket had been Slytherin's. Well, we hear that sort of story all the time, 'Oh, this was Merlin's, this was, his favourite teapot,' but when I looked at it, it had his mark all right, and a few simple spells were enough to tell me the truth. Of course, that made it near enough priceless. She didn't seem to have any idea how much it was worth. Happy to get ten Galleons for it. Best bargain we ever made!"

Dumbledore gave the Pensieve an extra-vigorous shake and Caractacus Burke descended back into the swirling mass of memory from whence he had come.

"He only gave her ten Galleons?" said Harry even he, a muggle-raised wizard knew that something belonging to one of the founders of Hogwarts would be worth 500 times that amount if not more.

"Caractacus Burke was not famed for his generosity," said Dumbledore. "So we know that, near the end of her pregnancy, Merope was alone in London and in desperate need of gold, desperate enough to sell her one and only valuable possession, the locket that was one of Marvolo's treasured family heirlooms."

"But she could do magic!" said Harry impatiently. "She could have got food and everything for herself by magic, couldn't she?"

"Ah," said Dumbledore, "perhaps she could. But it is my belief—I am guessing again, but I am sure I am right? That when her husband abandoned her, Merope stopped using magic. I do not think that she wanted to be a witch any longer. Of course, it is also possible that her unrequited love and the attendant despair sapped her of her powers; that can happen. In any case, as you are about to see, Merope refused to raise her wand even to save her own life."

"She wouldn't even stay alive for her son?"

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "Could you possibly be feeling sorry for Lord Voldemort?"

"No," said Harry quickly, "but she had a choice, didn't she, not like my mother."

"Your mother had a choice too," said Dumbledore gently. "Yes, Merope Riddle chose death in spite of a son who needed her, but do not judge her too harshly, Harry. She was greatly weakened by long suffering and she never had your mother's courage. And now, if you will stand ..."

"Where are we going?" Harry asked, as Dumbledore joined him at the front of the desk.

"This time," said Dumbledore, "we are going to enter my memory. I think you will find it both rich in detail and satisfyingly accurate. After you, Harry ..."

Harry bent over the Pensieve; his face broke the cool surface of the memory and then he was falling through darkness again. . . . Seconds later, his feet hit firm ground; he opened his eyes and found that he and Dumbledore were standing in a bustling, old-fashioned London street.

"There I am," said Dumbledore brightly, pointing ahead of them to a tall figure crossing the road in front of a horse-drawn milk cart.

This younger Albus Dumbledore's long hair and beard were auburn. Having reached their side of the street, he strode off along the pavement, drawing many curious glances due to the flamboyantly cut suit of plum velvet that he was wearing.

"Nice suit, sir," said Harry cheekily, something about the aged Headmaster told him he could relax and be more like himself instead of the cold, uncaring persona he presented the rest of the world.

Dumbledore merely chuckled as they followed his younger self a short distance, finally passing through a set of iron gates into a bare courtyard that fronted a rather grim, square building surrounded by high railings. He mounted the few steps leading to the front door and knocked once. After a moment or two, the door was opened by a scruffy girl wearing an apron.

"Good afternoon. I have an appointment with a Mrs. Cole, who, I believe, is the matron here?"

"Oh," said the bewildered-looking girl, taking in Dumbledore's eccentric appearance. "Um . . . just a mo.' . . . MRS. COLE!" she bellowed over her shoulder.

Harry heard a distant voice shouting something in response. The girl turned back to Dumbledore. "Come in, she's on 'er way."

Dumbledore stepped into a hallway tiled in black and white; the whole place was shabby but spotlessly clean. Harry and the older Dumbledore followed. Before the front door had closed behind them, a skinny, harassed-looking woman came scurrying toward them. She had a sharp-featured face that appeared more anxious than unkind, and she was talking over her shoulder to another aproned helper as she walked toward Dumbledore.

". . . and take the iodine upstairs to Martha, Billy Stubbs has been picking his scabs and Eric Whalley's oozing all over his sheets, chicken pox on top of everything else," she said to nobody in particular, and then her eyes fell upon Dumbledore and she stopped dead in her tracks, looking as astonished as if a giraffe had just crossed her threshold.

"Good afternoon," said Dumbledore, holding out his hand. Mrs. Cole simply gaped.

"My name is Albus Dumbledore. I sent you a letter requesting an appointment and you very kindly invited me here today."

Mrs. Cole blinked. Apparently deciding that Dumbledore was not a hallucination, she said feebly, "Oh yes. Well, well then, you'd better come into my room. Yes."

She led Dumbledore into a small room that seemed part sitting room, part office. It was as shabby as the hallway and the furniture was old and mismatched. She invited Dumbledore to sit on a rickety chair and seated herself behind a cluttered desk, eyeing him nervously.

"I am here, as I told you in my letter, to discuss Tom Riddle and arrangements for his future," said Dumbledore.

"Are you family?" asked Mrs. Cole.

"No, I am a teacher," said Dumbledore. "I have come to offer Tom a place at my school."

"What school's this, then?"

"It is called Hogwarts," said Dumbledore.

"And how come you're interested in Tom?"

"We believe he has qualities we are looking for."

"You mean he's won a scholarship? How can he have done? He's never been entered for one."

"Well, his name has been down for our school since birth."

"Who registered him? His parents?"

There was no doubt that Mrs. Cole was an inconveniently sharp woman. Apparently Dumbledore thought so too, for Harry now saw him slip his wand out of the pocket of his velvet suit, at the same time picking up a piece of perfectly blank paper from Mrs. Cole's desktop.

"Here," said Dumbledore, waving his wand once as he passed her the piece of paper, "I think this will make everything clear."

Mrs. Cole's eyes slid out of focus and back again as she gazed intently at the blank paper for a moment.

"That seems perfectly in order," she said placidly, handing it back. Then her eyes fell upon a bottle of gin and two glasses that had certainly not been present a few seconds before.

"Oh you were very good sir." Harry said to the older Dumbledore with a grin.

"I do try." Dumbledore grinned back as he watched his younger self.

"Er, May I offer you a glass of gin?" she said in an extra-refined voice.

"Thank you very much," said Dumbledore, beaming.

It soon became clear that Mrs. Cole was no novice when it came to gin drinking. Pouring both of them a generous measure, she drained her own glass in one gulp. Smacking her lips frankly, she smiled at Dumbledore for the first time, and he didn't hesitate to press his advantage.

"I was wondering whether you could tell me anything of Tom Riddle's history. I think he was born here in the orphanage?"

"That's right," said Mrs. Cole, helping herself to more gin. "I remember it clear as anything, because I'd just started here myself. New Year's Eve and bitter cold, snowing, you know. Nasty night. And this girl, not much older than I was myself at the time, came staggering up the front steps. Well, she wasn't the first. We took her in, and she had the baby within the hour. And she was dead in another hour."

Mrs. Cole nodded impressively and took another generous gulp of gin.

"Did she say anything before she died?" asked Dumbledore. "Anything about the boy's father, for instance?"

"Now, as it happens, she did," said Mrs. Cole, who seemed to be rather enjoying herself now, with the gin in her hand and an eager audience for her story. "I remember she said to me, 'I hope he looks like his papa,' and I won't lie, she was right to hope it, because she was no beauty."

Harry snorted at the understatement of the century.

"And then she told me he was to be named Tom, for his father, and Marvolo, for her father, yes, I know, funny name, isn't it? We wondered whether she came from a circus, and she said the boy's surname was to be Riddle. And she died soon after that without another word."

"Well, we named him just as she'd said, it seemed so important to the poor girl, but no Tom nor Marvolo nor any kind of Riddle ever came looking for him, nor any family at all, so he stayed in the orphanage and he's been here ever since."

Mrs. Cole helped herself, almost absentmindedly, to another healthy measure of gin. Two pink spots had appeared high on her cheekbones.

Then she said, "He's a funny boy."

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "I thought he might be."

"He was a funny baby too. He never ever cried, you know. And then, when he got a little older, he was . . . odd."

"Odd in what way?" asked Dumbledore gently.

"Well, he…" But Mrs. Cole pulled up short, and there was nothing blurry or vague about the inquisitorial glance she shot Dumbledore over her gin glass.

"He's definitely got a place at your school, you say?"

"Definitely," said Dumbledore.

"And nothing I say can change that?"

"Nothing," said Dumbledore.

"You'll be taking him away, whatever?"

"Whatever," repeated Dumbledore gravely?

She squinted at him as though deciding whether or not to trust him. Apparently she decided she could, because she said in a sudden rush, "He scares the other children."

"You mean he is a bully?" asked Dumbledore.

"I think he must be," said Mrs. Cole, frowning slightly, "but it's very hard to catch him at it. There have been incidents. . . . Nasty things ..."

Dumbledore did not press her, though Harry could tell that he was interested. She took yet another gulp of gin and her rosy cheeks grew rosier still.

"Billy Stubbs's rabbit . . . well, Tom said he didn't do it and I don't see how he could have done, but even so, it didn't hang itself from the rafters, did it?"

"I shouldn't think so, no," said Dumbledore quietly.

"Hung a rabbit from the rafters, even as a child he was a psychopath." Harry commented in disgust.

"My thoughts entirely." Dumbledore agreed.

"But I'm jiggered if I know how he got up there to do it. All I know is he and Billy had argued the day before." Mrs. Cole took another swig of gin, slopping a little over her chin this time

"In the summer we take them out, you know, once a year, to the countryside or to the seaside, well, Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop were never quite right afterwards, and all we ever got out of them was that they'd gone into a cave with Tom Riddle. He swore they'd just gone exploring, but something happened in there, I'm sure of it. And, well, there have been a lot of things, funny things. . . ."

She looked around at Dumbledore again, and though her cheeks were flushed, her gaze was steady. "I don't think many people will be sorry to see the back of him."

"You understand, I'm sure, that we will not be keeping him permanently?" said Dumbledore. "He will have to return here, at the very least, every summer."

"There was no hope for Tom Riddle from the start was there?" Harry asked as he looked at Dumbledore. "He was destined to become the Dark Lord no matter what."

"Looking back, I have to agree." Dumbledore replied sadly.

"Oh, well, that's better than a whack on the nose with a rusty poker," said Mrs. Cole with a slight hiccup. She got to her feet, and Harry was impressed to see that she was quite steady, even though two-thirds of the gin was now gone. "I suppose you'd like to see him?"

"Very much," said Dumbledore, rising too.

She led him out of her office and up the stone stairs, calling out instructions and admonitions to helpers and children as she passed. The orphans, Harry saw, were all wearing the same kind of greyish tunic. They looked reasonably well-cared for, but there was no denying that this was a grim place in which to grow up. Though if he was honest with himself, he would have much preferred to grow up here than at #4 Privet Drive.

"Here we are," said Mrs. Cole, as they turned off the second landing and stopped outside the first door in a long corridor. She knocked twice and entered.

"Tom? You've got a visitor. This is Mr. Dumberton? Sorry, Dunderbore. He's come to tell you, well, I'll let him do it."

Harry and the two Dumbledore's entered the room, and Mrs. Cole closed the door on them. It was a small bare room with nothing in it except an old wardrobe and an iron bedstead. A boy was sitting on top of the grey blankets, his legs stretched out in front of him, holding a book.

Harry was surprised by his and Tom's striking resemblance, but then again not so surprised seeing as they were cousins after all, he supposed he and Dudley might have looked alike if the other boy wasn't so fat in the face.

There was no trace of the Gaunt's in Tom Riddle's face. Merope had got her dying wish: He was his handsome father in miniature, tall for eleven years old, dark-haired, and pale. His eyes narrowed slightly as he took in Dumbledore's eccentric appearance. There was a moment's silence.

"How do you do, Tom?" said Dumbledore, walking forward and holding out his hand.

The boy hesitated, then took it, and they shook hands. Dumbledore drew up the hard wooden chair beside Riddle, so that the pair of them looked rather like a hospital patient and visitor.

"I am Professor Dumbledore."

"'Professor'?" repeated Riddle. He looked wary. "Is that like 'doctor'? What are you here for? Did she get you in to have a look at me?"

He was pointing at the door through which Mrs. Cole had just left.

"No, no," said Dumbledore, smiling.

"I don't believe you," said Riddle. "She wants me looked at, doesn't she? Tell the truth!"

He spoke the last three words with a ringing force that was almost shocking. It was a command, and it sounded as though he had given it many times before. His eyes had widened and he was glaring at Dumbledore, who made no response except to continue smiling pleasantly. After a few seconds Riddle stopped glaring, though he looked, if anything, warier still.

"Who are you?"

"I have told you. My name is Professor Dumbledore and I work at a school called Hogwarts. I have come to offer you a place at my school your new school, if you would like to come."

Riddle's reaction to this was most surprising. He leapt from the bed and backed away from Dumbledore, looking furious.

"You can't kid me! The asylum, that's where you're from, isn't it? 'Professor,' yes, of course well, I'm not going, see, that old cat's the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they'll tell you!"

"I am not from the asylum," said Dumbledore patiently. "I am a teacher and, if you will sit down calmly, I shall tell you about Hogwarts. Of course, if you would rather not come to the school, nobody will force you."

"I'd like to see them try," sneered Riddle.

"Hogwarts," Dumbledore went on, as though he had not heard Riddle's last words, "is a school for people with special abilities."

"I'm not mad!"

"I know that you are not mad. Hogwarts is not a school for mad people. It is a school of magic."

There was silence. Riddle had frozen, his face expressionless, but his eyes were flickering back and forth between each of Dumbledore's, as though trying to catch one of them lying.

"Magic?" he repeated in a whisper.

"That's right," said Dumbledore.

"It's . . . its magic, what I can do?"

"What is it that you can do?"

"All sorts," breathed Riddle. A flush of excitement was rising up his neck into his hollow cheeks; he looked fevered. "I can make filings move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to."

His legs were trembling. He stumbled forward and sat down on the bed again, staring at his hands, his head bowed as though in prayer.

"I knew I was different," he whispered to his own quivering fingers. "I knew I was special. Always, I knew there was something."

"Well, you were quite right," said Dumbledore, who was no longer smiling, but watching Riddle intently. "You are a wizard."

Riddle lifted his head. His face was transfigured: There was a wild happiness upon it, yet for some reason it did not make him better looking; on the contrary, his finely carved features seemed somehow rougher, his expression almost bestial.

"Are you a wizard too?"

"Yes, I am."

"Prove it," said Riddle at once, in the same commanding tone he had used when he had said, "Tell the truth."

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "If, as I take it, you are accepting your place at Hogwarts…"

"Of course I am!"

"Then you will address me as 'Professor' or 'sir.'"

Riddle's expression hardened for the most fleeting moment before he said, in an unrecognizably polite voice, "I'm sorry, sir. I meant please, Professor, could you show me?"

Harry was sure that Dumbledore was going to refuse, that he would tell Riddle there would be plenty of time for practical demonstrations at Hogwarts that they were currently in a building full of Muggles and must therefore be cautious. To his great surprise, however, Dumbledore drew his wand from an inside pocket of his suit jacket, pointed it at the shabby wardrobe in the corner, and gave the wand a casual flick.

The wardrobe burst into flames.

Riddle jumped to his feet; Harry could hardly blame him for howling in shock and rage; all his worldly possessions must be in there. But even as Riddle rounded on Dumbledore, the flames vanished, leaving the wardrobe completely undamaged.

Riddle stared from the wardrobe to Dumbledore; then, his expression greedy, he pointed at the wand. "Where can I get one of them?"

"All in good time," said Dumbledore. "I think there is something trying to get out of your wardrobe."

And sure enough, a faint rattling could be heard from inside it. For the first time, Riddle looked frightened.

"Open the door," said Dumbledore.

Riddle hesitated, then crossed the room and threw open the wardrobe door. On the topmost shelf, above a rail of threadbare clothes, a small cardboard box was shaking and rattling as though there were several frantic mice trapped inside it.

"Take it out," said Dumbledore.

Riddle took down the quaking box. He looked unnerved.

"Is there anything in that box that you ought not to have?" asked Dumbledore.

Riddle threw Dumbledore a long, clear, calculating look. "Yes, I suppose so, sir," he said finally, in an expressionless voice.

"Open it," said Dumbledore.

Riddle took off the lid and tipped the contents onto his bed without looking at them. Harry, who had expected something much more exciting, saw a mess of small, everyday objects: a yo-yo, a silver thimble, and a tarnished mouth organ among them. Once free of the box, they stopped quivering and lay quite still upon the thin blankets.

"You will return them to their owners with your apologies," said Dumbledore calmly, putting his wand back into his jacket. "I shall know whether it has been done. And be warned: Thieving is not tolerated at Hogwarts."

Riddle did not look remotely abashed; he was still staring coldly and appraisingly at Dumbledore. At last he said in a colourless voice, "Yes, sir."

"At Hogwarts," Dumbledore went on, "we teach you not only to use magic, but to control it. You have inadvertently, I am sure been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school. You are not the first, nor will you be the last, to allow your magic to run away with you. But you should know that Hogwarts can expel students, and the Ministry of Magic yes, there is a Ministry will punish lawbreakers still more severely. All new wizards must accept that, in entering our world, they abide by our laws."

"Yes, sir," said Riddle again.

It was impossible to tell what he was thinking; his face remained quite blank as he put the little cache of stolen objects back into the cardboard box. When he had finished, he turned to Dumbledore and said baldly, "I haven't got any money."

"That is easily remedied," said Dumbledore, drawing a leather money-pouch from his pocket. "There is a fund at Hogwarts for those who require assistance to buy books and robes. You might have to buy some of your spell books and so on second-hand, but."

"Where do you buy spell books?" interrupted Riddle, who had taken the heavy money bag without thanking Dumbledore, and was now examining a fat gold Galleon,

"In Diagon Alley," said Dumbledore. "I have your list of books and school equipment with me. I can help you find everything."

"You're coming with me?" asked Riddle, looking up.

"Certainly, if you."

I don't need you," said Riddle. "I'm used to doing things for myself, I go round London on my own all the time. How do you get to this Diagon Alley sir?" he added, catching Dumbledore's eye.

Harry thought that Dumbledore would insist upon accompanying Riddle, just like he knew McGonagall was going to insist she accompanied him to the Alley when she told him of been a wizard but for whatever reason changed her mind and let him go by himself.

But once again he was surprised. Dumbledore handed Riddle the envelope containing his list of equipment, and after telling Riddle exactly how to get to the Leaky Cauldron from the orphanage, he said, "You will be able to see it, although Muggles around you, non-magical people, that is will not. Ask for Tom the barman, easy enough to remember, as he shares your name."

Riddle gave an irritable twitch, as though trying to displace an irksome fly.

"You dislike the name 'Tom'?"

"There are a lot of Toms," muttered Riddle. Then, as though he could not suppress the question, as though it burst from him in spite of himself, he asked, "Was my father a wizard? He was called Tom Riddle too, they've told me."

"I'm afraid I don't know," said Dumbledore, his voice gentle.

"My mother can't have been magic, or she wouldn't have died," said Riddle, more to himself than Dumbledore. "It must've been him. So when I've got all my stuff when do I come to this Hogwarts?"

"All the details are on the second piece of parchment in your envelope," said Dumbledore. "You will leave from King's Cross Station on the first of September. There is a train ticket in there too."

Riddle nodded. Dumbledore got to his feet and held out his hand again. Taking it, Riddle said, "I can speak to snakes. I found out when we've been to the country on trips, they find me, they whisper to me. Is that normal for a wizard?"

Harry could tell that he had withheld mention of this strangest power until that moment, determined to impress. He knew because he himself had held off telling McGonagall the same, trying to impress her.

"It is unusual," said Dumbledore, after a moment's hesitation, "but not unheard of."

His tone was casual but his eyes moved curiously over Riddle's face. They stood for a moment, man and boy, staring at each other.

Then the handshake was broken; Dumbledore was at the door.

"Good-bye, Tom. I shall see you at Hogwarts."

"I think that will do," said the white-haired Dumbledore at Harry's side, and seconds later, they were soaring weightlessly through darkness once more, before landing squarely in the present-day office.

"Sit down," said Dumbledore, landing beside Harry.

Harry obeyed, his mind still full of what he had just seen.

"Did you know then?" asked Harry.

"Did I know that I had just met the most dangerous Dark wizard of all time?" said Dumbledore. "No, I had no idea that he was to grow up to be what he is. However, I was certainly intrigued by him. I returned to Hogwarts intending to keep an eye upon him, something I should have done in any case, given that he was alone and friendless, but which, already, I felt I ought to do for others' sake as much as his.

"His powers, as you heard, were surprisingly well-developed for such a young wizard and most interestingly and ominously of all, he had already discovered that he had some measure of control over them, and begun to use them consciously. And as you saw, they were not the random experiments typical of young wizards: He was already using magic against other people, to frighten, to punish, to control. The little stories of the strangled rabbit and the young boy and girl he lured into a cave were most suggestive. . . . 'I can make them hurt if I want to. . . .'"

"And he was a Parselmouth." interjected Harry.

"Yes, indeed; a rare ability, and one supposedly connected with the Dark Arts, although as we know, there are Parselmouths among the great and the good too. In fact, his ability to speak to serpents did not make me nearly as uneasy as his obvious instincts for cruelty, secrecy, and domination."

"Time is making fools of us." said Dumbledore, indicating the dark sky beyond the windows. "But before we part, I want to draw your attention to certain features of the scene we have just witnessed, for they have a great bearing on the matters we shall be discussing in future meetings."

"Firstly, I hope you noticed Riddle's reaction when I mentioned that another shared his first name, 'Tom'?"

Harry nodded.

"There he showed his contempt for anything that tied him to other people, anything that made him ordinary. Even then, he wished to be different, separate, and notorious. He shed his name, as you know, within a few short years of that conversation and created the mask of Lord Voldemort' behind which he has been hidden for so long.

"I trust that you also noticed that Tom Riddle was already highly self-sufficient, secretive, and, apparently, friendless? He did not want help or companionship on his trip to Diagon Alley. He preferred to operate alone. The adult Voldemort is the same. You will hear many of his Death Eaters claiming that they are in his confidence, that they alone are close to him, even understand him. They are deluded. Lord Voldemort has never had a friend, nor do I believe that he has ever wanted one.

As he sat there, Harry felt that he and Tom Riddle were very similar except for one crucial thing, he did want a friend, even many friends, his only problem that due to his upbringing, he found it hard to trust people.

"And lastly I hope you are not too sleepy to pay attention to this, Harry, the young Tom Riddle liked to collect trophies. You saw the box of stolen articles he had hidden in his room. These were taken from victims of his bullying behaviour, souvenirs, if you will, of particularly unpleasant bits of magic. Bear in mind this magpie-like tendency, for this, particularly, will be important later."

""And now, it really is time for bed."

Harry got up and stretched only now realising just how tired he was.

"Thank you sir." Harry said respectfully.

"For what Harry?" Dumbledore asked with a kind smile.

"For taking the time to help me understand Voldemort and to hopefully one day defeat him once and for all." Harry truly was grateful that someone so skilled and powerful was taking the time out of their lives to give him, Harry Potter a fighting chance against Lord Voldemort.

"You are very welcome my boy, very welcome." Dumbledore beamed. After everything they had seen and talked about tonight, he was surer than ever that Harry truly was mature enough to shoulder the burden fate had placed upon his young shoulders.

"Goodnight sir." Harry smiled as he walked towards the door.

"Goodnight Harry." Dumbledore smiled back.

"Oh and watch out for Quirrell, he is working for Voldemort and is trying to steal the philosopher's stone to bring him back too full power." Harry said as he reached the door and turned back to look at the Headmaster.

"Yes Harry, I am aware, however, as I cannot prove it, I cannot fire him." Dumbledore explained hoping Harry would understand. "Is this why you came to see me in the first place."

"Yes sir, but we seemed to be come side tracked somewhat." Harry grinned as he indicated the stone basin still sat on the Headmaster's desk.

"Yes we did indeed."

"Anyway, I understand why you can't fire him, we'll just have to keep a closer eye on him from now on." Harry said surprisingly maturely for and eleven year old boy who Quirrell had already tried to kill once.

"Indeed we will." Dumbledore tipped his head at Harry in respect for his show of maturity. "Anyway we shall visit more of Tom's past tomorrow night at the same time if you wish."

"Yes sir, see you tomorrow night, goodnight sir." Harry tipped his head back in respect before leaving the office to go back to the Slytherin common room and to get some sleep, now that he thought about it he was very tired, he couldn't wait to get into his warm, comfy bed.

End of Chapter

AN: WOW that is the longest chapter I have ever written for any story or anything else really. What did you think? And yes I know that it contained a lot of stuff from the sixth book but I thought it was relevant and I also said at the beginning that there would be content from the sixth book.